LTY UPDATE: Monday, October 1st, 2012
Day #3 of passage from Vanuatu to Marshall Islands LTY time: 17:300 (Marshall Islands time = UTC +12)
*Note change of time starting today to be on Marshall Islands time
Location: 345nm NNE of Luganville, Espiritu Santo Island, Vanuatu
Distance to go Majuro: about 1100nm
Position: 12 40.495 S, 168 21.196 E (you can cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)
SOG: 6.5kts (SOG = Speed over Ground)
COG: 009 degrees (COG = Course over Ground)
Wind: 10-15kts ESE
Seas/Swell: 2m ESE
Weather: Sunny and clear skies with large fluffy clouds surrounding all horizons. Air temp: 82 F 28C
Sea temp: 95.5 F 35.3 C
Barometer: 1018nm SAILING in a BIRD’s NEST Ahhh, Day #3 of a passage, one of my favorites as it is when I become one with all that surrounds me. As I mentioned yesterday I feel like my nervous system and brain is directly wired into the universe and all that surrounds me when I’m out here silently slicing through the water and so viscerally aware of the sea, sky, wind, stars, moon, the boat beneath me and all the data I’m constantly tracking. Hard to articulate and very special to experience. This morning for example as the sun was emerging from the far eastern side of my watery world the it gradually illuminated the sky to a brilliant light blue all above that was contrasted against the white fluffy clouds rimming the endless horizon surrounding me. With this “oneness” I have out here the model in my head enabled me to see little Learnativity skimming along the water inside this blue hole gently sculpted out of an enormous circle of whipped egg white like clouds. Having the active little brain that I do, this triggered the memory of one of my favorite childhood breakfasts when my Mum would make what she called “Birds in a Nest”. Many of you may remember helping your Mum make something similar by a different name perhaps. She would by separating the yolks from the whites of several eggs and then whip the egg whites till they were fluffy and stood up on their own. With a spoon you arrange the egg whites all around the edges of a slice of bread, creating a type of moat with a hole in the middle where you would then carefully place one of the whole egg yolks. After a few minutes in the oven, just enough to brown the outer surface of the egg whites and cook the yolk, I was soon enjoying my “Birds in a Nest” breakfast! That all came rushing back to me this morning as I imagined myself sailing in the most beautiful blue “yolk” surrounded by all those fluffy egg white clouds. After taking some time to just enjoy all this awesome scene Mother Nature had gifted me with this morning I couldn’t resist the urge and dashed down to the galley to make my boyhood favorite Birds in a Nest and bring them up to the cockpit to enjoy. As I looked down at the Birds in a Nest on my plate and then up and out at Mother Nature’s much larger serving of the same, it was like one of those images in an image you see when you have several mirrors reflecting multiple images on and on. Sorry to go on about this but hope it helps you get some sense of what my senses are feeling and what this experience is like. Today was also one of those perfect sailing days as the wind and the seas had now receded to create ideal sailing conditions. The wind was down to under 15 knots and the swells, while still running about 2 meters high, had spread out to be only about every six seconds so they were now like rolling hills moving under the boat and the motion was now this gentle rocking side to side as the wind almost silently propelled us through the water. The lower winds mean that the boat is also much more upright and not heeling over so Ruby and I were both able to walk about much more easily. The winds continued to drop and by about 6am were down below ten knots so I decided to take in the Genoa (front sail) and put up the spinnaker. It took about an hour to get it flying as this is the first time I’ve had it up in about a year. I had to go dig it out all the lines and blocks I use for this sail and pull the sail out of its hiding spot in the front cabin where it is stowed and pull it up on deck through the big hatch onto the deck and then sort it all out in its “sock” to remove all the twist that had accumulated over time and storage. To enable me to fly this big sail singlehanded the whole sail is captured inside a sixty foot long nylon sock about 18 inches in diameter and you then pull this sock all the way up to the very top of the mast with a halyard. Attached to the bottom of the sock is a large fiberglass yoke with a line that runs from the yolk all the way up to the top and back down again. Once I have the sock with the sail inside it fully raised I am able to pull on this line and hoist the yolk up so that the sail billows out below it. As the yolk goes up it pulls the sock with it and once the yolk and bunched up sock is at the top of the mast the spinnaker is fully uncovered and ready to fly . To take the spinnaker down you “douse” it by pulling on the opposite side of this line to pull the yolk back down again which pulls the sock back over the sail and I can now quite easily let the whole sail down onto the deck and stow it back down the hatch. I never tire of the wonder of watching that huge blue and white spinnaker slither out of the sock as I pull it up and then catch the wind with the sound of all those hundreds of yards of nylon rustling in the wind and then the POP! as the wind fills it and it puffs out to its magnificent shape. My feet feel the tug of the spinnaker on the extended bow sprit and the wind on my skin tells communicates the slow steady acceleration as the forces take hold and pull Learnativity through the water at ever increasing speeds. Although the wind was only about seven to ten knots we were soon doing over six knots with the glorious whoosh of the bow wave to complete the scene. Not a bad way to start my day! I enjoyed this idyllic sailing for a few hours and then I could feel that the wind was starting to freshen up a bit and as I looked out ahead and to the east I could see the faint beginnings of some wind waves and tiny little flecks of white on the tips of a few swells. The spinnaker is so big and light that it is only intended for low winds, usually ten knots or less and I’ve learned the hard way what happens if you don’t get it down in time so I decided to douse it and put the genoa back up and be ready for the increased winds that looked to be approaching. You’d almost think I knew what I was doing as shortly after I got the spinnaker stuffed back down the hatch and the genoa back up, the winds picked up to about 15 knots and we just perfect for the genoa to be pulling us along at five to six knots. The wind stayed pretty steady the rest of the day and just as I’ve been typing up this note for you, the winds have been slowly rising as there is a large storm cloud off to the north east and the winds around it are filling in here now. I’m keeping an eye on it as it moves across in front of me over to the north west and looks like I’ll be able to change course a bit to the east and miss the brunt of it. Right now though it is surrounding me in more beauty by forming a huge rainbow off to the east. The sky is still very blue and clear above though so there are just the two ends of the rainbow visible in the clouds and the span must be 50nm or more by my rough estimates. I’m going to go enjoy more of that colourful phenomena and keep an eye on the storm so I’ll say night for now and be back with more tomorrow. Wayne
Day #3 of passage from Vanuatu to Marshall Islands LTY time: 17:300 (Marshall Islands time = UTC +12)
*Note change of time starting today to be on Marshall Islands time
Location: 345nm NNE of Luganville, Espiritu Santo Island, Vanuatu
Distance to go Majuro: about 1100nm
Position: 12 40.495 S, 168 21.196 E (you can cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)
SOG: 6.5kts (SOG = Speed over Ground)
COG: 009 degrees (COG = Course over Ground)
Wind: 10-15kts ESE
Seas/Swell: 2m ESE
Weather: Sunny and clear skies with large fluffy clouds surrounding all horizons. Air temp: 82 F 28C
Sea temp: 95.5 F 35.3 C
Barometer: 1018nm SAILING in a BIRD’s NEST Ahhh, Day #3 of a passage, one of my favorites as it is when I become one with all that surrounds me. As I mentioned yesterday I feel like my nervous system and brain is directly wired into the universe and all that surrounds me when I’m out here silently slicing through the water and so viscerally aware of the sea, sky, wind, stars, moon, the boat beneath me and all the data I’m constantly tracking. Hard to articulate and very special to experience. This morning for example as the sun was emerging from the far eastern side of my watery world the it gradually illuminated the sky to a brilliant light blue all above that was contrasted against the white fluffy clouds rimming the endless horizon surrounding me. With this “oneness” I have out here the model in my head enabled me to see little Learnativity skimming along the water inside this blue hole gently sculpted out of an enormous circle of whipped egg white like clouds. Having the active little brain that I do, this triggered the memory of one of my favorite childhood breakfasts when my Mum would make what she called “Birds in a Nest”. Many of you may remember helping your Mum make something similar by a different name perhaps. She would by separating the yolks from the whites of several eggs and then whip the egg whites till they were fluffy and stood up on their own. With a spoon you arrange the egg whites all around the edges of a slice of bread, creating a type of moat with a hole in the middle where you would then carefully place one of the whole egg yolks. After a few minutes in the oven, just enough to brown the outer surface of the egg whites and cook the yolk, I was soon enjoying my “Birds in a Nest” breakfast! That all came rushing back to me this morning as I imagined myself sailing in the most beautiful blue “yolk” surrounded by all those fluffy egg white clouds. After taking some time to just enjoy all this awesome scene Mother Nature had gifted me with this morning I couldn’t resist the urge and dashed down to the galley to make my boyhood favorite Birds in a Nest and bring them up to the cockpit to enjoy. As I looked down at the Birds in a Nest on my plate and then up and out at Mother Nature’s much larger serving of the same, it was like one of those images in an image you see when you have several mirrors reflecting multiple images on and on. Sorry to go on about this but hope it helps you get some sense of what my senses are feeling and what this experience is like. Today was also one of those perfect sailing days as the wind and the seas had now receded to create ideal sailing conditions. The wind was down to under 15 knots and the swells, while still running about 2 meters high, had spread out to be only about every six seconds so they were now like rolling hills moving under the boat and the motion was now this gentle rocking side to side as the wind almost silently propelled us through the water. The lower winds mean that the boat is also much more upright and not heeling over so Ruby and I were both able to walk about much more easily. The winds continued to drop and by about 6am were down below ten knots so I decided to take in the Genoa (front sail) and put up the spinnaker. It took about an hour to get it flying as this is the first time I’ve had it up in about a year. I had to go dig it out all the lines and blocks I use for this sail and pull the sail out of its hiding spot in the front cabin where it is stowed and pull it up on deck through the big hatch onto the deck and then sort it all out in its “sock” to remove all the twist that had accumulated over time and storage. To enable me to fly this big sail singlehanded the whole sail is captured inside a sixty foot long nylon sock about 18 inches in diameter and you then pull this sock all the way up to the very top of the mast with a halyard. Attached to the bottom of the sock is a large fiberglass yoke with a line that runs from the yolk all the way up to the top and back down again. Once I have the sock with the sail inside it fully raised I am able to pull on this line and hoist the yolk up so that the sail billows out below it. As the yolk goes up it pulls the sock with it and once the yolk and bunched up sock is at the top of the mast the spinnaker is fully uncovered and ready to fly . To take the spinnaker down you “douse” it by pulling on the opposite side of this line to pull the yolk back down again which pulls the sock back over the sail and I can now quite easily let the whole sail down onto the deck and stow it back down the hatch. I never tire of the wonder of watching that huge blue and white spinnaker slither out of the sock as I pull it up and then catch the wind with the sound of all those hundreds of yards of nylon rustling in the wind and then the POP! as the wind fills it and it puffs out to its magnificent shape. My feet feel the tug of the spinnaker on the extended bow sprit and the wind on my skin tells communicates the slow steady acceleration as the forces take hold and pull Learnativity through the water at ever increasing speeds. Although the wind was only about seven to ten knots we were soon doing over six knots with the glorious whoosh of the bow wave to complete the scene. Not a bad way to start my day! I enjoyed this idyllic sailing for a few hours and then I could feel that the wind was starting to freshen up a bit and as I looked out ahead and to the east I could see the faint beginnings of some wind waves and tiny little flecks of white on the tips of a few swells. The spinnaker is so big and light that it is only intended for low winds, usually ten knots or less and I’ve learned the hard way what happens if you don’t get it down in time so I decided to douse it and put the genoa back up and be ready for the increased winds that looked to be approaching. You’d almost think I knew what I was doing as shortly after I got the spinnaker stuffed back down the hatch and the genoa back up, the winds picked up to about 15 knots and we just perfect for the genoa to be pulling us along at five to six knots. The wind stayed pretty steady the rest of the day and just as I’ve been typing up this note for you, the winds have been slowly rising as there is a large storm cloud off to the north east and the winds around it are filling in here now. I’m keeping an eye on it as it moves across in front of me over to the north west and looks like I’ll be able to change course a bit to the east and miss the brunt of it. Right now though it is surrounding me in more beauty by forming a huge rainbow off to the east. The sky is still very blue and clear above though so there are just the two ends of the rainbow visible in the clouds and the span must be 50nm or more by my rough estimates. I’m going to go enjoy more of that colourful phenomena and keep an eye on the storm so I’ll say night for now and be back with more tomorrow. Wayne
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